Potty Chair

As Linus' friends have each turned two, their mothers have started potty training with them. Well, they are all girls and girls generally potty train earlier, so I had no inclination to start the process with Linus yet.  He, on the other hand, saw Lucero's potty chair, as well as her sitting on it, and decided he needed one. I told him we would get him one.  About a week past and I still hadn't picked one up. Then Friday we were playing with Chase at her house and Langley said she had one she was willing to give us since Chase didn't like it. It was too unstable for her.  When she brought it out to the backyard where we were having a picnic lunch and the kids were playing with bubbles and croquet mallets, Linus was thrilled and claimed it as his very own. 

When we got it home, he insisted on carrying it himself up the two small flights of steps outside, over the threshold, and into the spot on the bathroom floor that he claimed for himself by plopping it down. Then he sat down on it quite proudly.

We are taking a noncommittal attitude toward this because I think it is early yet for him and I don't want to make a big deal of it until he is ready.  He mostly ignored the potty chair until yesterday morning. He was in bed with us after we all woke up and suddenly he said he needed to pee. He slid down off of our bed and ran into the bathroom. We could hear him sit down in there and then he came back and told us he was all done.  Did he pee in his diaper just then? We don't know.  

Matthew came up with a solution for the problem of the chair tipping forward when Linus sits on it: a brick inside the base.  Works great!

(The shirt he is wearing has an owl on it and says "I'm a hoot!"  Yeah, no kidding!)

2nd Birthday Party

I sent out homemade invitations to Linus' birthday party.  Since we were still unpacking and settling into the house, I made simple ones with a bright blue and green palette and pasted a plaid bird on the front of each one.  We had four children attend the big event: Chase, Lucero, Lena, and Lena's four-year old brother Gabriel.  I was relieved that the weather was pleasant so the children could play outside with balloons, a crawl-through tube thing, and a giraffe tent I picked up on sale a number of months ago.

We gave each child a bird water whistle.  With water inside of it, blowing can produce a warble instead of just a loud whistle sound.  The whistles were a hit, especially when Matthew put down a big bowl of water so the kids could refill their whistles themselves. Water and noise makers! What fun!

I made Linus a pistachio cake with a light green cream cheese frosting.  I really surprised him with the Playmobil bird feeder set on top of the cake.  I was most pleased with myself for thinking to use cookie sprinkles as a stand-in for bird seed.  He got a kick out of that.

Linus liked all of the neat presents he received from his friends. Lena and Gabriel gave him a remote control train. Chase gave him an unfinished wood bird house, paint for painting the bird house, a little notebook for his bird watching notations, and a bird checklist.  Lucero gave him a real china tea set in a wicker basket.  He especially likes to serve us tea in the dainty cups.

Then the kids went home, we tucked Linus in for a nap, and I sank down into the couch next to Matthew and proclaimed that we'd properly feted his birthday.

Easter 2008

When Linus woke up Easter morning we sent him out to look at his basket in the living room. When he realized the bunny inside was chocolate, he got really excited.  He also found a plush duck that quacks when one pushes its tummy and some chocolate chicks. He kept offering us bites of the chocolate bunny.  He insisted we take bites, even when we told him it was for him.

We got moving pretty quickly because neighbor kids were going to be coming over at 10:30 for an Easter egg hunt. We were unpacked enough for me to be able to serve coffee, tea, and biscotti to the parents and yogurt to the kids.  Linus' friends Charlotte, Lucero, and Chase attended the event.  

Only Charlotte had previous egg hunt experience (from day care), but the other kids caught on quickly and ran around finding eggs in our new back yard.  Linus took longer to get into it because he was trying to figure out why or how we had plastic eggs back there.  The kids enjoyed opening the eggs and finding the stickers and little rubber chicks and bunnies I had put in them.

I'm Back!

As of about 10 minutes ago, the DSL is working. Thanks to a nice guy who works for the local phone company making the correction even though he wasn't supposed to do the work.  He went to school at Whitewater.  Wisconsin connections do matter!

More very soon, with picture updates of the last month of Linus' life that you've missed.

Moving

Linus and I continue to make two trips per day to the new house.  His new role is to play doorman.  As I go out to the car, he closes the door most of the way. When I return with a box he pulls it open and I enthusiastically say, "Thank you so much doorman. What a great doorman you  are!"  This keeps him entertained and from running free up the block looking for the orange and white neighborhood cat that he wants to befriend.

I painted Linus' room a bright blue. I'm very happy with the color, but Matthew doesn't seem to be sold on it. I painted his bookcases a darker blue, but I don't like how they turned out. The intensity of both the walls and the shelves together hurts my eyes. I'm now going to paint the shelves a light green and hope to create a nice reading nook for him in his room.  I obtained the book cases in 1989 by rescuing them from a dumpster outside my apartment building.  They were my first bookcases and, even though there is a chunk of wood missing from the top front of one of them from one of my drunk college friends trying to open a beer bottle on it (yes, I attended school in Wisconsin!), I've kept them all this time.  Now they get repurposed for Linus.

Linus likes the new house and enjoys jumping in piles of packing paper.  He also likes looking at books that were in storage because when we moved here a year ago he wasn't ready for them.  Now he is and so he got an entire box of new books.  

Longest Sentence

Last night during bedtime stories Linus said his longest sentence to date: "That's a horse sleeping."  I did a happy dance on the inside. I really do enjoy witnessing his language development.

He was a good sport about moving yesterday, but today he wasn't very happy about it.  He brought some more toys to the new house, but then didn't want to play with them.  So after I unloaded a car full of very heavy boxes (we have too many books!), we ran an errand and then hung out together at the old place.

While running the errand I witnessed a hit and run accident and it certainly was a stressful experience.  Colfax Avenue has four lanes, plus turning lanes going in each direction.  A sports car sped out of a side street right into an oncoming SUV.  Between the force of the impact and the SUV driver's defensive driving, he was heading in our direction.  I immediately pulled over into the street parking to get as far over as I could.  Then I witnessed the sports car back up, turn into traffic, and speed away.  The SUV was in a turn lane going in the wrong direction. I called over traffic to ask if they were all okay. They were and called the police. Another car pulled up behind me and we both stuck around to serve as witnesses.  While waiting for the police I almost broke down crying to relieve the stress of thinking that the vehicles were going to crash into us. More importantly, crash into Linus. I held it together and then it turns out none of us were good witnesses because we couldn't describe the driver at all.  Linus liked that the officer peeked his head into the car and said hi to him.

Here is a picture of Linus walking around the new house with my shoes on.  He likes walking around with Matthew's sandals on.  He has also started trying to put his own socks on.

Mowing

Linus has picked up the mowing bug from Bennett.  I bought him a mower last summer when he was interested in trying out Bennett's mower, but he wouldn't share with Linus.  Linus hardly played with it.  On nice days recently we encountered all three of Bennett's mowers in his front yard. (He is obsessed with mowing and somehow ended up with three of them. I forget why.  Dawn ends up mowing neighbors' lawns because Bennett likes to mow alongside her.) So on our walk up the block from Lucero's house, Linus ran up the lawn and grabbed one of the mowers and began mowing. Then Charlotte got home from day care and she joined in.  They were adorable mowing together.

Yesterday I brought the mower to the new house and Linus mows in the back yard while I haul boxes in and unpack.  I'm really glad to have a safe back yard for Linus.

About the walk home from Lucero's house; sometimes it can take 45 minutes to get in our door.  Linus insists on going down her slide a number of times before I can cajole him into heading home so I can make dinner.  Two houses later he encounters Bennett's mowers and dump truck.  We stop so he can play.  Then, as I've nearly convinced Linus to head home, Charlotte comes out of the very next house and the two of them play.  There are only five houses between ours and Lucero's, but boy does it take a long time to get home.

Bird Songs

Linus is very interested in birds right now.  I checked out some birding books from the library. One of them is about 250 pages long and has a player. Linus likes to push to hear each bird's song and I tell him about the bird on each page.  In the picture he is showing the book to Matthew.  He has a number of nature books and when we read them he points to every bird and says, "That's a..." and expects me to know what every bird on Earth is.  He makes a good whippoorwill call with the right inflection.  I think I'll assign him to bird feeder duty at the new house. 

Today I met the neighbor on the south side of us. Her kids are one and three.  New friends for Linus!

Snow Angel

As I mentioned in the last post, Sunday was snowy.  Matthew took Linus out in the sled while I started dinner.  He pulled Linus over to the new house and back (about six blocks round trip). He helped Linus make his very first snow angel and snowman.  Here are the results. I leaned out the door to take pictures and when I got cold I gave the camera to Matthew.

I've only been able to take two car loads of stuff each day to the house because I play with Linus while we are working.  At this rate, we'll be completely moved by the end of the year!

New House

We closed on the house Friday afternoon and the owner got out by 6 p.m. yesterday. We went to dinner with Martha and Bill to celebrate and then went over the house to show them around and for us to explore all the nooks and crannies that are now ours. Linus gleefully ran from room to room, hiding in closets and calling out for us to find him. What will soon be my craft room has French doors and he likes to close the doors and peek at us by smooshing his face up against the glass.  I'm currently contemplating what color to paint his room.  Nursery Green?  Chesapeake?Douglas Fern? Once Upon A Time is a beautiful, rich green, but it is too dark for his room.  I'm also admiring Paddington Blue, but it is also too dark.  

Yesterday it was 74 degrees and today it is 30 degrees and snowing.  I've been told that these wide fluctuations are pretty normal for here.

Here we are at our back door.  It was too dark on the front porch to get a picture of us up front. The other picture is of Linus doing a happy dance. Or else he is just twirling around being an energetic toddler.

Story Time Promotion

I decided to move Linus up to the next level of story time at the library because he wasn't really getting anything out of Book Babies any more. We attended Tales for Two on Monday.  He had so much fun.  In between reading three books, the librarian led the group in doing the hokey pokey (Linus' first time), jingling bells to a song about bells, and several songs with movement involved. He stayed sitting by me while other kids sat up front together.  Before I know it, he'll prefer sitting with other kids over me.  When we got home, he pulled himself onto the couch to read the penguin book he checked out while I made lunch.  He also got a book about whales and one about puffins.  He now knows how baleen whales use their baleens to catch krill. I gloss over the page that addresses whale hunting.  I narrate that page by saying that the men are out in a boat to look at whales.  I'm not ready to introduce him to the practice of hunting.

To see a whole bunch of pictures depicting his visit to the library this day, visit the album.

Golden Moments

There are times each and every day when I'm dazzled by Linus' cuteness, intelligence, sweetness, or wit.  Some examples include:

* The bright, exuberant smile that bursts from his face when he first sees me each morning.  Wow! I get such a rush from it.

*Listening to his chatter when we are in separate rooms and he is talking to his toys or himself.  Charming.

*His sensitive soul is revealed by his constant awareness of togetherness.  When we eat an afternoon snack together across from one another at the table he says, "Eating snack. Together."  Or when we snuggle up next to each other under a quilt on the couch to read books he points out, "Reading together."  Togetherness with him is pure joy.

*The genuine appreciation he expresses when he effuses, "Thank you!" for some small thing I've done for him, like bring him a cup of water.

*The other day at the park he fell down and scraped his forehead on pavement. I scooped him up and attempted to soothe him with hugs and kisses. He kept crying and saying, "Hug.  Kiss." When I replied, "I am giving you hugs and kisses sweetheart," he said, "No, goose." He wanted one of the geese to comfort him!

Here he is having a blast at Barrett's birthday party. The kids were popping bubbles that the adults blew for them.

Toddler Crafting

Linus made a birthday card for his friend, Barrett. She turns two this Saturday.  I started by giving him a piece of paper folded in half. I showed him some pictures and he chose the ones he wanted me to cut out for him.  Then I showed him how to use a glue stick.  Ooooh, he loved this part! I quickly ran and grabbed his play dough place mat to work on so glue wouldn't get on the table.  After he stuck down a few pictures, I asked if he wanted to try cutting.  This was pretty interesting to watch. I sipped coffee and watched him make a go at it.  Then we held the scissors together to cut.  He glued pictures of flowers and butterflies on both the front and the back.  Then I instructed him to write or draw for her on the inside.  I told him he would give her the card and present (a book) at her party on Saturday. He said she would say thank you.  I don't know about that, but it is okay if she doesn't because Linus will probably say thank you for her.  I let him pick out the wrapping paper and I let him put some tape on the present, even though it didn't end up being anywhere that it was holding the paper closed.  He was very proud of it all. I asked him where we should put it to keep it safe until Saturday.  He ran and put it in his treasure box (the shoe box with stickers).

Back to the topic of thank you. A woman at the store yesterday commented on how polite Linus was.  Be still my mothering heart.

Outdoor Fun

We've had some nice weather and been able to play outside with our light-weight jackets on.  (Sorry Wisconsin folks who keep getting blasted by winter.)  Linus likes to play with this ear of Indian corn and pretend that he is a squirrel eating it.  As we walk up the block, he stops at Anna's and rides on her porch swing.  Then we tend to encounter Bennett mowing the lawn with his toy mower.  Linus is always excited to see Bennett, but Bennett doesn't play well with Linus. He tries to run him down with the mower.  Then we head over to Lucero's yard and Linus plays on her Little Tykes playset out front. If they are home, Anna Louiza and Lucero come out. The kids play and Anna Louiza and I talk about craft projects, thrift store finds, books, the kids, etc. Sometimes we sip wine -- if it has been a hard day and it is getting close to 5.  

Reptile and Human Friends

We took Linus to a reptile program at the library yesterday.  He was very excited about getting to pet a gecko. We also pet a large snake. He wanted to pet the tarantula and didn't understand that one can hold it but not pet it.  (It would release some of its hairs into his skin and it would itch.)  We ran into my friend Cheryl and her kids, Lena and Gabriel. Gabriel is four and Linus thinks the world of him.  He watches his every move.  Lena is just a couple of weeks older than Linus. When we saw them enter the presentation room, Linus got very excited and started running toward them. About halfway to them, he turned around and ran back to me to breathlessly exclaim, "Friends!"  and then he ran back to them.

Here he is petting a snake, showing Lena the dump truck on his shirt, and the kids climbing around in front of the library.  I just love the tulle under Lena's skirt!

Neighborliness

Wednesday it was in the 60's here and all the neighbor kids were out playing together in the afternoon.  Then it started snowing overnight and we ended up with a couple of inches of snow by mid-day on Thursday. We bundled up and went out to shovel.  Linus tried out the big snow shovel, but gave up on that pretty quickly.  I explained to him that I was shoveling Anna's sidewalk because she is out of town for work and can't do it herself. He proceeded to use his mittened hands to brush the snow off of her porch steps, railing, and porch swing. I tried to capture this gesture of kindness with the camera, but the camera battery gave out in the cold.

Valentines

Last year Linus mostly played with his Valentines and this year he has been excited to receive them.  Thank you to everyone who sent him one.  Here he is all excited about getting one in the mail from Aunt Sara and Uncle Billy.  They got an extra squeal out of him because there was a sheet of stickers inside the card.

Stickers

Linus likes playing with stickers. Up until fairly recently he has been good about only sticking his stickers on his shoe box treasure box.  He learned to stick them to his shirt from the bank and the caucus.  Our credit union always gives him a sticker and I planted an Obama sticker on him at the caucus.  One day last week I was working in the kitchen and he was quiet. I knew to go check on him and found that he was applying sticker after sticker to his sweater. I didn't stop him; instead, I took some pictures and went back to making dinner.

Bill (Matthew's uncle) watched Linus today while I was at the house inspection.  Leading up to it Linus told me he was going to share his cars and books with him.  Both were happy when I returned four hours later.

Cupcakes

A cupcake and cereal bar opened up near us. We visited it on Saturday when it felt really good to be outside.  We let Linus choose his own cupcake and he pointed into the case and said, "Sprinkles."  They were served on cute little plates.  Here is how Linus ate his.

Toddler Bed

As I write this, Linus is napping for the first time in his toddler bed.  We set it up for him this morning and he helped take apart his crib.  We are borrowing the bed frame from our neighbors, Juliana and George, parents to Alex and Max.  

I leaned into his room and snapped a couple of pictures. I'm feeling weepy about this change.  As Matthew started taking apart the crib, I reminded him of how I had to go to the bathroom every three minutes as we set it up for Linus' arrival.  And I still remember how I felt about moving Linus from the bassinet to the crib.  Anna Louiza marvels at my sentimentality when it comes to Linus.  Words can't convey how I feel about him growing up.